The Knight and the Trickster
by Polsar
Summary: Judy Hopps has just graduated from the imperial magic academy of Zootopia, and has hit a roadblock on her quest to make a difference in the world. But when a mysterious fox disrupts her life, she will be drawn into a world more incredible and dangerous than she ever imagined. (Magic Zootopia AU)
1. Chapter 1

Judy Hopps was an initiate of the imperial mage order. She was the first rabbit to ever have been accepted into the imperial magic academy (though she was also the first rabbit to ever apply). The overseer of the academy had assumed Judy would flunk out within the first week of training. But as time had worn on, Judy continued to be at the top of her class. Between her natural swiftness, superb mama control, and her impressive ability for thinking on her feet, she quickly became the overseer's favorite student.

When the time had come to award commissions to the graduates, the overseer had recommended Judy be made a lieutenant immediately. Instead, Judy had almost been dismissed outright.

Her small stature meant her already light mage armor was incredibly weak. The sword she carried was barely a dagger to larger mammals. And though her mana control was better than that of many imperial officers, she could not wield it in a large enough quantity to match larger mammals.

The overseer was insistent though. She was certain that Judy would be an asset to the empire. She had gone so far as to take her case to emperor Lionheart, an old friend of the overseer's. He had been impressed by Judy's tenacity, and granted her his personal support.

With the emperor himself backing Judy, she was officially accepted into the order. But not as an officer. She was assigned the lowest possible rank - initiate. A rank given to pity cases and weaklings. And her duties? She had only one. Patrolling the imperial mage library. Located in the order's headquarters in the capital city. In the basement. Not only that, but she was part of the night watch as well; the token skeleton crew that maintained operations while everyone else slept.

In short, they had given her the most meaningless task possible as her one and only job. Were she to remain here, she would never have a chance at advancement. She would never see combat. She would never make a difference at all.

Despite all these things, Judy was up every evening before her shift, and performed her duties faithfully until her watch ended. She had made friends with most of the rest of the skeleton crew, despite rarely seeing them, and had become fast friends with the imperial librarian, who apparently never slept. The librarian, an aged badger who had been the library's keeper longer than anyone could remember, had offered to help Judy find a way to prove herself to her superiors. He was an old friend of high mage Bogo, the head of security for the capital, and Judy's current commanding officer. The librarian intended to stage a theft of the library's most treasured tomes. Judy would thwart the robbery and chase off the thief. If nothing else, it would remind Bogo that she existed, and perhaps that would be enough.

And tonight was the night. The librarian had told her precisely what time to be there, who the thief would be (a local jackal, actually a baker, but he looked the part), and what to do. The trick was to make all of this look convincing.

Every important imperial structure was constructed with runes carved beneath the floor of every room. Placing the runes beneath the floor protected them from physical disruption, which meant they simply needed to be kept charged to be effective. There were four different runes placed in each room: an alarm, a lockdown, a dispel, and a detonation. The alarm would tell every mage within a set radius there was an intruder or problem, and where it was. The lockdown would generate a mana barrier that would prevent any non-imperial mage from drawing mana, and would drop heavy stone walls over every entrance and exit, even the windows. Imperial mages would still be able to draw mana from the city's ley lines, only accessible to those initiated into the imperial mage order. The dispel would cancel out any current enemy magics. And the detonation was a last resort. If there was an enemy so dangerous that it could not be defeated, any imperial mage could activate this rune to trigger an enormous explosion, which would also simultaneously activate all three other runes.

Judy would need to activate the alarm rune before engaging the thief, as that was standard protocol. The librarian would need to appear incapacitated in some way as well, so that it would be believable that he could not have triggered the alarm himself. Once the alarm was triggered, they wouldn't have much time. The alarm would summon not only the night watch, but it would wake the entire building. Judy would have no more than four minutes at most to 'fight' the intruder, before he would need to make his escape.

The plan was risky. If at any point they messed up, they could get caught. And wasting the time and resources of the imperial mage order was not taken lightly.

But Judy was desperate. She had wanted her whole life to be an imperial mage. Wielding magic against the empire's foes, dispensing justice, helping those in need… Making a difference.

She steeled herself as she descended the staircase into the basement of the fortress. Instead of her usual winding route, she made a beeline straight for the library doors. She placed an ear against one of the enormous oaken doors and listened for a moment. She didn't want to go in until she knew the others were ready.

She could hear the librarian saying something inside. He sounded panicked.

Judy wasn't sure if something had gone wrong or not. She debated whether she should keep waiting or go inside now. Her decision was made for her when she heard the librarian cry, "Wait! Please, stop!"

She threw the doors open with a burst of magic. She drew her blade and shouted, "Halt, fiend! You have trespassed on imperial property. Surrender or face the wrath of the imperial mage order!"

The librarian looked at her with an expression of terror. "Judy, help me!"

The badger was being held up off the ground by a mammal that was too tall to be a jackal. Judy noticed the baker lay unconscious in the corner behind this newcomer.

Judy's pulse quickened. An actual intruder.

His hooded head turned towards her. Glowing emerald eyes gazed out from the shadows of the hood.

A toothy grin grew on his face.

"Well, hello there." Said the fox.

 **A/N: Wow, look at all that backstory, followed by, like, 3 seconds of character interaction. I am a good author.**

 **Anyway, this is something fun I came up with a little while ago, so I'm just testing the waters with it right now. This will probably be my side project to 'No Right Answers,' so updates may be sparse.**


	2. Chapter 2

Judy's heart hammered in her chest. There was an actual intruder in one of the most secure buildings in the empire. He had managed to bypass every night guard, every lock, and every ward in the building. Clearly, he was incredibly dangerous.

Judy couldn't believe her luck.

On the night she had planned to stage a break-in, a real one had actually occurred.

Judy's grip tightened on her sword.

"Stand down, fox, or be destroyed." She commanded.

The fox's grin fell away, and he set the librarian back on the ground, but kept a firm grip on the librarian's robe. He looked down at the cobblestone floor, and placed his free paw to his chin, as though he were considering some great puzzle.

"Hmm, complete my mission, or surrender to an arrogant rabbit. What to do…" He said, tapping his muzzle.

Judy bristled at that.

"Arrogant!? Says the fox trespassing on imperial property!"

"Hm? Oh, I'm sorry, is this place one of yours? I honestly didn't notice, what with the lax security and all." He said, that annoying grin returning to his face.

Judy grit her teeth.

"Lax security? I'll show you lax security!" She shouted.

She gathered her mana and shot it forward for three of the four runes. In her anger, she had gathered more than necessary, and it had become clearly visible in the night air, arcing forth down into the floor, towards the buried runes. But before they could travel even half the distance, all three pulses sputtered and died. The fox had surrounded Judy with a mana shield. For any non-imperial mage, being completely surrounded by a mana shield was a step away from being dead. Every living being in the world had their own unique "form" of mana. No two shared mana that could freely mingle with each other, much less pass through one another. So you could not reach out to conduct mana, as you lacked the resources to penetrate the shield. This meant that when you were surrounded by a mana shield, you only had access to any mana left inside the shield with you, and the first thing every rookie mage learned was how to draw mana out of your own shield, leaving your prisoner helpless.

Imperial mages, however, had an ace up their sleeves. Every imperial city was constructed with ley lines running throughout the city. If you were aware of how to access them, you could conduct mana straight from the lines, without needing to draw it into yourself from the surrounding area. Ley lines also made it far less likely that you would overtax yourself while casting, allowing you to stay in combat longer, without risk of burning yourself out.

Judy smirked. She had to admit, the fox was fast. She hadn't even noticed him drawing mana for the shield. Still, he was about to get a rude awakening.

"A mana shield?" She asked, making a show of examining her nails. "How quaint. But I think you'll find," she said, smiling triumphantly, "imperial mages are a bit harder to keep down!" She resisted the urge to reach out around her as she normally would, instead simply casting her spirit downwards, towards the lines resting beneath them.

...But she couldn't find them.

She knew they were there, she had drawn on them before. They had to be there!

"Yes," the fox said, "you do seem to have trouble staying grounded." His smirk grew.

Judy was dumbstruck. Nothing could stop the flow of mana along the ley lines. That was the whole point! They had spent over a week in training for this exact type of situation!

Judy looked down, and realized what the fox had meant. He had lifted her up entirely off the ground.

Her head snapped back up and she glared at him hard. "You-you- How did you do this?" She demanded, flailing about as she lost her balance in the air and began to turn upside down.

The fox walked over to the door to the librarian's private study, dragging the old badger with him. "I'll admit, when you guys first started installing ley lines in your cities, I thought you might actually be starting to get smart." He shook his head sadly. "But alas, even when being clever you continue to be dumb." He turned to look back at her when he reached the door. "Turns out, for any of your mages to utilize the ley lines you've developed, they have to be touching a surface or object directly adjacent to the lines themselves. Meaning, since you're not touching the walls or floor, you can't access the line's mana pool."

The fox stooped for a moment to tie the librarians wrists and ankles together, then turned back and knelt to pick the lock on the door. Judy's mind raced. Whatever he was here for, this fox knew far too much about imperial defences to be allowed to walk free. Not to mention, he had assaulted an imperial staff member, an initiate, and an innocent baker. Thankfully, Judy had one last trick up her sleeve.

Several weeks ago, the librarian had taught her an ancient and seldom-used trick for overcoming situations like these. He had showed her how to construct mana crystals. A mana crystal is simply a solid chunk of crystallized mana. When condensed into such a form, it could be stored for use in case of emergency, such as being trapped inside a mana shield. Ever since the development of ley lines more than a hundred years ago, the technique had fallen out of use amongst imperial mages, especially since the process was so taxing. Forming a mana crystal required you not only to gather however much mana you wished to store, but you had to hold all of it together in the most condensed form you could manage, while summoning even more mana to construct the crystal with. Further, if someone happened to steal the crystal from you before you could make use of it, then you would have just handed them a power source to use against you.

Judy had nevertheless seized the opportunity to learn something new. And now, she beamed with pride as she prepared to catch the smug fox off-guard.

She knew she would only get one shot at this though. The fox had already displayed an impressive ability to quickly disperse her mana, and if he dispelled the mana from her crystal, then she would be out of options and he would most likely get away.

"You know, I'm curious," he asked suddenly, snapping Judy out of her thoughts, "how did a cute little bunny like you manage to get into the imperial academy? Not only that, but graduate as well!" He stood back up as the door creaked open, and turned to face her, that infuriating smirk still sitting on his muzzle. "Truly," he said, "I'm impressed."

Despite being upside down at this point, Judy crossed her arms and gave him a half-lidded look of annoyance.

"I'm assuming you aren't aware of this, being a thieving fox with no manners, but it's actually rude for another mammal to call a bunny cute."

Judy's teeth began to grind as his smile only grew after her comment.

"Not one for small talk, eh? Well, that's fine," he said, striding through the door, "I'll be done soon, and you can get back to guarding your precious books."

The librarian sat up suddenly, struggling to his feet despite his bonds.

"No, you can't, I -" the badger began.

"Ah ah ah, you stole this in the first place, and now I'm stealing it back." The fox said, leaning back out the door and pressing his finger against the badger's lips.

"Now, just be patient, and I'll let you get back to your little charade here." He said, lightly shoving the older mammal over and back onto the ground.

Judy heard the fox begin to rummage around inside the other room, and knew this was the best chance she was going to get. She reached into her waist pouch and pulled out the largest mana crystal she had managed to make thus far. It wasn't very much, only enough to activate one of the runes, but that should be all she would need. She drew every bit of its energy into her, and quickly focused it all into an incredibly fine point, then shot it out directly towards the alarm rune.

There was a light popping sound in the air as the fox's mana shield had a small hole bored into it. A moment later, and a loud wailing sound filled the whole fortress, alerting everyone there that an intruder was in the library.

"Yes! Yes, I did it! Hah, in your stupid face, arrogant fox!" Judy shouted, throwing her arms up in excitement, which cause her to begin tumbling through the air again.

The fox dashed out of the room, a look of panic on his face.

"What, how did you-"

The old badger snapped his bonds, his claws growing long and monstrous, and leapt onto the fox's back, trying to tear his throat open.

Judy was shocked. She had never seen the librarian move faster than a shuffling crawl, but suddenly he was trading blows both physical and magical with the fox, apparently trying his hardest to kill him.

The fox became so focused on the new fight that he failed to keep his mana shield on Judy together. As it faded away, she plopped onto the ground with a light thud.

She stood up and raised her sword while drawing mana into herself, preparing to join the badger in fighting the fox, when she noticed something off. The librarian was becoming more and more deformed as the fight went on. Every hit he took, his skin seemed to peel away and die rather than char or bleed. And underneath, he had a sickly rotten green tone to his skin.

As she was standing there, the badger glanced over towards her. When he saw her staring, he grinned at her, baring too many teeth that were far too thin and pointed.

The fox leapt at him while he wasn't looking, but the badger brought up his claw and caught him full in the gut as he came down. The fox collapsed to the ground, clutching a profusely bleeding wound.

The now-monstrous badger turned and began lumbering towards Judy.

"Not much longer now deary," he said, his voice sounding like a dagger drawing across skin, "You've seen too much though. I'm afraid you'll need to be dead as well when everyone gets here. Don't worry though, I'll tell them all how you died saving my life."

Judy couldn't process what was happening right now. The librarian, one of the only real friends she'd had since graduating from the academy, was walking towards her with murder clear in his eyes. She knew she needed to move, to defend herself, to do something, but confusion and fear kept her from taking any action. She backed away as he got closer, soon feeling her back press against the wall. The badger was right in front of her now. He raised his claw, preparing to tear her apart. Judy screwed her eyes shut.

There was a wet slicing sound, and Judy reflexively clutched her stomach…

But she was fine.

She hesitantly opened one eye, and saw the fox standing behind the badger, one arm wrapped around his neck to keep him from screaming, the other arm holding the sword that had just pushed through the twisted mammals gut. The fox was clearly still bleeding, but his wound was nowhere near as bad as it had been a moment ago, and for some reason was much farther toward his side, rather in his center.

The badger sighed as his strength left him, and the fox released him to collapse on the ground.

Judy looked down to see a pool of blood oozing toward her feet, which she quickly shuffled away from. As she did, a firm grip seized one of her paws and dragged her a few feet away. The fox pressed her firmly against the wall. It faintly registered that she should be struggling, but Judy was too dazed to act on the thought.

"Are you hurt?"

Judy looked around the room for whoever asked the question.

One of the fox's paws gently took her chin and turned her back to face him.

"Are you hurt?"

Judy belatedly realized the fox was the one asking.

"I- yes."

"Did he wound you anywhere? Even just a scratch?"

"Uh, no, I, um, don't think so."

"Good, alright then."

The fox let her go, and she sagged down the wall to sit on the floor.

She turned to watch him as he walked away. He strode back into the librarian's room, where he rummaged a bit once again. He came back out carrying a spellbook that appeared to be very very old. It had writing on it that Judy recognized as being from the time of the Dragon Wars, a terrifying age when mammals fought dragons for the world itself. It was said that all spells created from that time were destroyed when the war was over, for fear that they could be turned on mammal-kind and wreak horrible devastation.

"What just happened?" Judy heard herself ask.

Everything had happened so quickly. Judy was certain that barely three minutes had passed, which meant the other mages would be here soon.

The fox had been walking to the stairs, but paused at her question. He sighed quietly as he turned to face her.

"Look, this wasn't supposed to happen like this. I didn't mean for… There wasn't supposed to be anyone else here for this."

She simply stared at him, giving him no other reaction. He turned back towards the stairs.

"I'm sorry, but your friends are almost here, and I can't let them see me. See you later, Fluff."

As he began climbing the stairs, Judy noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. The demonic badger had raised one paw towards the fox, and a small hole had opened in its center. Judy saw a needle slide out of it, a drop of some dark green liquid dripped onto the floor from it, and immediately began corroding the stone.

She moved without thinking.

"Look out!" she shouted.

She felt the needle embed itself in her left thigh. The impact was barely noticeable.

But it felt like her leg was on fire.

"No!" she heard the fox shout as she collapsed.

She could feel the poison rapidly spreading through her body, burning her from the inside. Her eyes clamped shut as she began convulsing.

She absently wondered why her limbs weren't hitting the floor. She managed to force one of her eyes open just a bit, and saw that the fox was carrying her up the stairs and into one of the ground-floor halls. She tried to speak, to tell him he shouldn't go this way, but she didn't have the strength.

A dozen imperial mages rounded the corner in front of them. Judy knew this was it for the fox. She wasn't entirely sure why, but the thought of him dying made her sad.

As the mages thundered towards them, Judy's grasp on consciousness faded. She closed her eyes, and darkness swallowed her.

...

 **A/N:**

 **Hoo boy, it's been a while, hasn't it?**

 **Man, I'm really sorry I haven't been updating for so long, but things have just gotten worse and worse.**

 **However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. See, we're so far behind at this point, that we've had to ask for a time extension on designing our experiment. Which they cannot give us. What they Can give us though, is a leave of absence for 'personal' reasons. So we decided to apply for that one for the maximum 90 day length.**

 **Then, they told us we shouldn't do that. Why? Because the college is about to go through some major faculty changes, and we might even up losing both our chair and our methodologist if we're out for too long.**

 **So we waited until this past Friday (the deadline we had to submit our application for leave), we came in at 4:30, and sat there in the office waiting room for 29 minutes, so we could submit our leave application for the full 90 days at the last possible moment.**

 **They looked at us like we were crazy.**

 **Anyway, all that to say: Maybe this will all actually get done, and I can start writing regularly again.**

 **I have no idea, but I'll keep you guys updated either way.**

 **Oh, also, no, I'm not dead, and neither are my stories. I'm almost finished on NRA chapter 15.**


	3. Chapter 3

Judy felt horrible all over. Every part of her body felt like it was crying out in agony. She tried to move, but everything was stiff, nothing responded the way it should. She tried to open her eyes, but could only manage to barely part her eyelids.

She faintly remembered dying. At least, it had felt like dying. She felt confident that she was supposed to be dead right now. Maybe she was, and the pain had just followed her into the afterlife.

But no, that couldn't be right. It didn't hurt as much now as it had before. She couldn't remember much, in fact she could hardly think at all right now, but she was certain of that fact. Whatever had happened, she was in less pain now than she had been when she thought she was dying.

So, not dead then.

Probably.

Then she lost consciousness once more.

...

When she woke up again, she felt like the pain had once more retreated somewhat. She could think a little bit clearer, though still couldn't move.

She was laying in a bed. She wasn't sure where. She imagined it was the infirmary. She tried to speak, but all that came out was a fragile croak, which elicited a slew of terrible pain throughout her chest and throat.

Someone was standing next to her now, but she still couldn't open her eyes enough to make out who it was. As she tried to turn her head, they placed a gentle paw on her forehead.

She heard a single word. Not in her ears, but in her mind. _Sleep_. She immediately complied.

...

Judy was running through the halls of the keep. She was lost. She didn't know how, as she had spent hours memorizing every detail of the keep's layout. Yet the halls twisted in unfamiliar ways, and wherever she looked, she saw nothing she could recognize.

She suddenly became aware that she was being chased. She could hear footfalls behind her, and a sinister monstrous breathing, both gaining on her quickly.

She glanced behind her in time to see the demon, wearing the tattered flesh of the librarian, looming behind her. It reached out with a terrible claw, and swung for her throat.

...

Judy's eyes shot open as the scream tore through her ragged throat. The fox who had been sitting in a chair leaned against the corner yipped in surprise and toppled over onto the floor. As the fox stood and rubbed his butt, Judy took in her surroundings. They were… not what she had been expecting.

She was sitting in a simple room, just large enough to accomodate the bed she was in, a burning hearth, a desk on the opposite wall, and the chair the fox was standing next to. But why wasn't she in the imperial clinic? And if not there, then why not her own room? At the very least she-

Her eyes snapped back to the fox. He was alive? How was he here!? He had been walking straight into a pack of imperial mage knights!

 _He… He didn't kill them… did he?_

Looking at him grumble while rubbing his rear end, she had trouble imagining him carving a path through a cloth bag, much less veteran mages of the empire.

He looked up at her and seemed annoyed with her.

"Sheesh, it's about time you woke up, rabbit."

"Excuse me? How about you try being poisoned by a demonic badger! We'll see how well you take to it."

The fox grinned, which frustrated Judy even more.

"Apparently you've forgotten, but I was." He said, lifting his open shirt to the side to reveal a bandage wound in his side, where the badger's claws had torn through him.

 _Oh. Oh, that's right._ Judy thought.

"Although," the fox began, walking towards her, "I'd say you still had it worse than I did. He couldn't risk using Abyss poison on his own claws. Even demons can't shrug that stuff off. No, the poison he had on his claws was much less annoying to deal with."

He paused as he rested a paw against her forehead. Judy slapped it away after a moment, having been distracted by his talk of poisons. How did this fox know all this? Or was he just making it all up as he went along?

The fox leaned over to rummage through a satchel on the bedside table. "Well, your fever's finally broken, so you should be out of danger by now. Honestly, I'm kind of impressed that you held up as well as you did. I didn't have to use nearly as much mana as I expected to keep you alive."

"Wait, what?" Judy asked. "You know healing magic?" In her studies, Judy had learned that healing magics were some of the most difficult magics that a mage could learn. Even the most learned healers in the empire still relied mainly on potions and herbs to heal sicknesses, and mainly time and rest for more physical wounds. Despite her fervent study, and great skill with mana manipulation, Judy was still far from mastering even the most basic healing magic. The idea that this fox knew more than she did… It infuriated her more than she could rationalize.

"Well, I don't claim to be a master or anything," the fox said, that annoying grin coming onto his face, "but I know a few things that have helped me stay alive."

"Speaking of," Judy began, but was quickly hushed, much to her annoyance.

"Questions later, fluff." The fox said, handing her a cup of water. "You've been flat on your back for days now, your body needs actual food and water if it's going to heal properly."

Judy took the cup, thankful for the way the cool water soothed her throat.

As she finished, she handed the cup back and asked, "What do you mean by that?" The fox chuckled and pointed at her.

"Notice anything strange?" He asked.

Taking a more focused look at herself, Judy noticed a faint green aura surrounding her. It was the same shade of green as that of the mana shield the fox had trapped her in at the library.

All mana expended in the casting of magic is affected by the mage who wields it. As the mage draws the mana in, they must refine it into something capable of accomplishing what they want it to do. Mana for a fireball requires very little refinement. In fact, it's best not to refine the mana too much, as will detract from the volatile nature of your attack. However, something as sophisticated and purposeful as a mana shield requires a significant amount of refinement. At least, if you want the shield to actually work.

When mana is refined, it touches something deep within the mage. The more refined the mana, the deeper the mage draws it and the more significant the contact with this hidden realm of the soul. Thus, all mages have their own personal 'flavor' that they give to their refined mana. This almost always manifests as a unique shade of color. In Judy's case, it is a deep violet, reminiscent of an amethyst. For the fox, it was a vivid shade of green that reminded Judy of something free. Something wild.

She turned back to the fox, amazement clear on her face.

"You… you've been using your mana to keep my body functioning. That's… I don't know of anyone who can do that." She said quietly.

"Yeah, well, you still need to eat." The fox said, standing up.

Judy was stunned. Here was a fox that could do something she was certain that the emperor's personal court mage would be unable to pull off, and not only had Judy _never_ heard of him, but he was more concerned about food. She had a million questions at that moment, but only one actually managed to make its way out.

"Who… Who are you?" She asked uncertainly.

The fox paused in walking to the door. He stood there for a moment without turning around, as though coming to terms with the question. Eventually, he looked back at her, that same grin on his muzzle.

"Me? I'm just a mammal out to cause trouble."

Judy huffed in annoyance, and opened her mouth to berate him, but then, the fox said something, just a single word. Judy didn't hear it though. Rather, the word resonated in her mind.

 _Sleep._

And she did.

...

 **A/N**

 **Wow. Ok. That took forever.**

 **Alright, so, long story short: Just about everything that could have gone wrong, did.**

 **I won't get into the details, because frankly I don't want to. The last several months have been pretty rough. But! They are now over, and I am finally moving on from them!**

 **Does that mean I'll start posting more often again? I have no idea!**

 **But I'll promise you this. I have no intention of abandoning my stories. It may take a while, but I will finish them.**

 **Anyhoo, questions, comments, reviews, and whatever else you want to say are always welcome!**


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